I’d like everybody to take a look at their most frequent commenters and ask yourselves some questions:

* What is the gender makeup split?

* What is the gender split who comment?

* What is their socioeconomic background?

* What percentage are bloggers vs. non bloggers?

* Do they always agree with what you are saying or do they test your thoughts?

Knowing your audience is crucial for blogging growth as well as general personal growth. You don’t want to live in a bubble, where the only thing you believe in is what you experience and see. The internet is about bringing different viewpoints together in a hopefully harmonious way.

The audience on Financial Samurai is 48/52 men/women readers, 65/35 men/women commenters, 80/20 bloggers/non-bloggers commenters, who earn roughly $80,000-$120,000 a year, and frequently challenge my opinions. With this demographic understanding, I can write more relevant content. Or, I can write content that completely goes against the mix.

I’m aiming fora more balanced mix of everything because 1) Everybody can learn different perspectives, 2) The site can appeal to a wider audience, and 3) I won’t get bored writing the same old things. Financial Samurai is less opinionated than it was 3.5 years ago is because I’ve read some wonderful perspective from thousands of people. As a result, I always try to weave a counter viewpoint in my editorials.

FOCUS IS IMPORTANT TOO

You can surely be the best blogger in debt, politics, real estate, retirement, investing, parenting, travel and so forth. The internet has allowed us to specialize in ways traditional media never could due to low switching costs. However, I urge everyone of you in niche categories to make sure you aren’t suffering from groupthink, where you blindly follow or agree with everything the author or your fellow community says.

Groupthink is particularly dangerous when it comes to investing. If you are a staunch growth investor who only invests in companies growing earnings over 25% a year for three years in a row, you probably got your face ripped off when the markets finally collapsed in 2008. The same thing goes for fans of real estate. The amount of taxes one pays is particularly explosive where one group is against raising taxes given they think all their achievements are from their own efforts and they pay the most already. Meanwhile another group are for tax increase, even if they don’t have to pay more themselves given we’re all-in this together.

If you are a debt blogger who only believes in reducing debt, you just might not see all the income generating opportunities around you. If you are a lifestyle blogger who only advocates breaking free from the corporate grind, you might end up living in your parents basement five years from now because all your friends who are “living the dream” in Thailand forget to tell you how little they make. If you are an American patriot blogger who doesn’t speak another language and has never lived or traveled internationally, you’re living in a bubble if you think the American way is the only way.

KEEP AN OPEN MIND

The reason why I love the Yakezie Network is because we have members from every single group who are collaborative. Many of us definitely do not see eye-to-eye on many subject matters on our respective sites. However, because we have blogging in common, we are more than happy to help each other out.

I’m not one to back down from a challenge because I intensely want to understand the other side. It’s not because I hate you for why I’m responding to your dissenting comments. It’s because I really want to make sure I’m not missing your point of view. Thanks to commenters’ opinions, I’ve written probably a hundred posts which argue their viewpoint so I can try and convince myself to change my original views. More often than not, I come closer to center.

If all your community is the same, beware. Lob in a post that goes completely counter to your traditional way of thinking on occasion. Don’t be defensive when the pitchforks start coming. Welcome the stabbings! Only then will we become better bloggers and ultimately better people who are more objective. There is truth to every opinion.

Financial Samurai is the founder of the Yakezie Network. Through continuing education and hard work, Sam believes everyone is able to achieve financial independence and give back to the community with abundance. Together we'll slice through money's mysteries!

Great tips Sam. I love reading other people’s opinions and viewpoints, but I have a hard time writing that way. That is why I’ve found two great staff writers to throw in a different viewpoint on my site each week. It breaks up my mix of posts and gives readers something a bit different to enjoy.

Definitely good point about having staff writers to throw in a different mix of posts and styles. I guess I haven’t employed any yet b/c I have too much in the queue and there are so many legitimate guest post requests it’s just too much. I’m seriously considering post 5X a week now as the queue really is ridiculous (51 now).

Yeah, it’s getting out of hand! they are fully written posts, ranging from 700-2,000 words long each. That’s what happens when you don’t have to work anymore. Lots of free time to write! 4 posts a week is easy now, so I’m thinking of 5-6 a week. Google doesn’t care whether the post is published on a Saturday or Monday, so that’s cool too.

Whoa! 51 posts in queue? That’s phenomenal. Do you sit down and write posts immediately after thinking of one or do you have a list you work from? My brain tells me to write from my predetermined list, but I strongly prefer to write about whatever strikes me in the moment.

I say up it to a M-F posting schedule and build in a mini vacation from blogging for yourself! You’ll eat up that backlog in no time and come back even more refreshed to churn out content.

I tend to write complete posts immediately, instead of just write the title and leave it as a draft. I like to to always start what I finish and be relentless that way. It’s more fun to write a post when it’s on the top of the mind and fresh rather than a day or two after you’ve thought of it.

I’m going 4X a week now. Still feel bad not giving at least 36 hours for a post to marinate! I gotta get over this if I want to grow.

Being that my main blog is focused on my personal finance journey, I try to touch on any and all subjects as they come up to me, whether it be debt, saving money, customer service, shopping tips, etc. I know this probably limits my audience because many people only *want* to read about one topic in particular, but I still wouldn’t change it. Besides, that ‘focus’ approach is what niche blogs are for, am I right?

Sure. Guess it depends on your definition of niche. Personal finance is a niche, but if you go micro niche and JUST talk about getting out of debt, it gets boring real quick for readers and the author.

The only major divisor I’ve seen between investing blogs is passive and active. That’s it. I like the active side, but being interested in value, special opportunities, whatever, I still have a lot of respect for active dividend investors, even though I’m not a dividend investing fan. Same thing with passive investors who can be intellectually honest about whatever differences there are. It’s just a hot and heavy topic because so much investing content has a populist appeal.

Sam, you do a great job of stirring up comments and encouraging it. I’m much more likely to “tell it like I see it” at your blog than others because I don’t feel as though open discussion is going to hurt your or your audience’s feeling. I like disagreement; it’s the best way to learn.

This is something I’ve wondered about myself. Most of my commenters are bloggers, but I have been starting to get comments from more non blogger readers and people who stumble upon my posts through search.

It’s nice to get varying opinions and viewpoints, and I especially like hearing other people’s stories. I’m not a fan of commenters who are just plain rude or mean when they disagree with someone/something though because there’s no reason to attack someone who has a different opinion. Some people think typing words online when they aren’t face to face with the other person(s) gives them the excuse to be bullies and that’s just sad and immature.

All comments are great for the community. It’s just when you get commenters from non bloggers where you begin to really start connecting with your audience, given most of our readers are not bloggers if we’re doing things right, since most of us are not blogging about blogging.

This article makes a really good point. I’ve had a number of topics that I would like to write about, but haven’t done so due to offending my readership. In many ways I’m holding back until my blog reaches critical mass (and then let fly). Maybe this is a bad strategy… I’m not sure.

I was just researching the phenomena “group think” for a class I teach. My students are required to answer weekly discussion questions in a threaded format, much like a blog comment thread. Inevitably, the first few posters have unique responses, then everyone else follows suit and posts variations on the same themes.

I think the same can be applied to blogging. If we are constantly reading other financial blogs (which all Yakezie challengers and members do as part of the challenge), we risk beginning to think alike. Just today, I was reading a CoupleMoney post on college savings and felt an urge to post on the same subject myself. Glad I didn’t – because then I logged on here and saw your post! That woulda been embarrassing…

This is the resource I direct my students to: http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/theory/grpthink.html
Perhaps, as point #7 in the last list instructs, we should welcome anyone who plays the devil’s advocate. It’s not always easy to digest alternate viewpoints, but it would serve us well to welcome them.

I’ve written posts based on others posts I’ve read, but usually because I don’t agree with the advice and decide to write my own viewpoint on the subject. My post on the Fiscal Cliff is a good example of that.

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